


Make a Deal With God

by voodoochild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Comment Fic, Community: fic_promptly, F/M, Vignette, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Garcia's shooting, Morgan asks for only one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make a Deal With God

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **clare_dragonfly** 's prompt at Fic Promptly: "if I only could/I'd make a deal with God". Major spoilers for "Penelope", vague ones for "Lauren". Title from the Placebo cover of the Kate Bush song "Running Up That Hill".

You never talk about those three long nights when Penelope wasn't safe in her own home. It's too painful. Still too raw, even years later.

Never mind the stitches and gauze holding her stomach together, or the deep, bruised circles under her eyes. What haunts you to this day was how ready you were to die in her place or to kill for her. Throw your badge away and just chase the bastard until you ran him down.

(You won't feel that way again until three years later - Ian Doyle and Emily Prentiss and that time, you let slip your lead and you chased the man who hurt one of your family.)

But it was Penelope - it's always been Penelope - that you place above all things. You've never, in all your years on this earth, felt that deeply and strongly about someone; a bone-deep need to just wrap her in your arms and never let go. Seeing her so frightened she shook, and not being able to do a damned thing to make her feel safe again.

Except for those three nights, when you laid right on the edge of her purple-and-turquoise-covered bed, careful not to touch her and rip her stitches. Listened to her ramble or cry or told her whatever story she wanted to hear. You could probably recite the plot of _The Princess Bride_ from memory, and quote back all her favorite lines from _Sandman_. You've seen her puffy-eyed and trembling, without a drop of makeup on, and you still think she's one of the most beautiful things in existence.

You thought torture had been that endless, oppressive silence in St. Mark's, praying for Floyd Feylinn's victims and restraining yourself from asking _"why, God? Why do you allow such horrors?"_

Now, you know torture is the knowledge that Penelope almost died while you were praying to a God you don't even believe in. Torture is waiting seven hours in a hospital room for her to wake up and breathe on her own. Torture is being barred from the case by the Bureau and catching Jason Clark Battle only by the grace of Aaron Hotchner's politesse with the higher-ups.

That last night, when she was finally safe (a single bullet from JJ's gun, right between the eyes, and you wish you could've taken the shot yourself), you asked God for only one thing.

 _Let it be me next time. Leave her alone._


End file.
